Tag: Quote Inspired

Adventures > Chores

“I don’t hold myself to longer hours; if I did, I wouldn’t gain by it. The only reason I write is because it interests me more than any other activity I’ve ever found. I like riding, going to operas and concerts, travel in the west; but on the whole writing interests me more than anything else. If I made a chore of it, my enthusiasm would die. I make it an adventure every day. I get more entertainment from it than any I could buy, except the privilege of hearing a few great musicians and singers. To listen to them interests me as much as a good morning’s work.”
Willa Cather, via MoveMe Quotes

If I was given the assignment of having to write a short-form essay every day for 423 days, I would call the assigner crazy. I would dread it. I probably wouldn’t make it past a week, let alone finish it. It’s how I felt whenever I was given a writing assignment in school.

While they were certainly effective at doing what they intended to do, there was still a palpable disconnect in how I felt about them. They weren’t organic to me. They weren’t self-driven explorations. They weren’t internally motivated. They were for a grade. They were rigid and formal. They were chores.

When I decided to write a few paragraphs about a quote every day starting on January 1st, 2020, it was like I was setting out on an adventure. I did it because I wanted to become a better writer. I did it because I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it for an entire year. I did it because I wanted to overcome the imposter syndrome I struggled with. I did it because I knew that if I wanted to become a serious writer, I would have to commit to a serious schedule.

And what a ride it has been.

Writing, for me, is one of the ultimate puzzles. There are over 170,000 words in the english language. And to spare both you and I some pretty ridiculous math, there are approximately an infinite number of ways those words can be combined into sentences, paragraphs, chapters, blogs, articles, and books—infinite.

And what fascinates me the most, is that within that mountain of words, lies the keys to understanding. Understanding people. Understanding places. Understanding things. Understanding ideas. And, most importantly, understanding ourselves. You just have to begin your adventure into the mountain on your own terms. And it will never be a chore.

Care For The Big Picture By Caring For The Small Details

“When you pay attention to detail, the big picture will take care of itself.”
George St-Pierre, via MoveMe Quotes

In Martial Arts, the direction of your toes—matters. The placement of your hands—matters. The distribution of your weight—matters. Even the height of your shoulders, the tilt of your head, and the squint of your eyes—matters.

Of course, the general coordination of the move matters, too, but it’s precisely the above mentioned details—the fine motor adjustments—that puts the “Art” in “Martial.” It’s the great divide between what makes “okay” and what makes “great.”

What separates an amateur punch from a professional punch isn’t their ability to quickly extend their hand from their face to a target and back—it’s how the details were minded in the process.

As is the case with basketball dribbles, hockey slap-shots, football throws, etc.—details are what separate beginners from masters and amateurs from pros. Anybody can dribble—few dribble professionally. And the same is true in how things are done in any sport.

But, attention to detail isn’t just activity specific.

The way you do anything is how you do everything. Attention to detail is a character trait that some choose to develop.

It’s a careful awareness. It’s a trained devotion to excellence. It’s the rigorous loyalty to the minutiae. It’s a deliberate decision to improve—beyond where most people stop. It’s a drive for inches when most people park after miles. It’s not for the faint of heart. It’s not for the preoccupied. It’s not for the careless.

It’s for the people who choose to be passionate, focused, and committed to paying details the attention they require—in any and every chosen task. It’s why attention is paid and not granted.

And it’s why masterpieces are so valuable—because they’ve been paid for in attention, energy, effort—details—many times over. Details that others find too expensive to pay. Details that, bring the big picture to life. Details that, when removed, would leave masterpieces as just pieces.

Warning: Waiting For Inspiration Can Backfire

“I’ve never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think that the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again.”
John Updike, via MoveMe Quotes

TicTok terrifies me. The first time I downloaded and opened the app, I lost an hour of my life in what felt like the blink of an eye—with all due respect to the creators. The pleasures of indulging in the app were so great that it felt like I lost consciousness and all sense of time. I haven’t opened the app since.

The same goes for video games. I tend to harbor an “all-in” type of personality. And when something captures my attention, it’s given my full and undivided attention. At one point in time, many years ago, I was “all-in” on video games. I once faked being sick so that I could skip school and play a new role-playing game (RPG) that I just got. I played for 16 hours straight, had Inception-type nightmares (that felt like they lasted years), woke up drenched in sweat, and quit—cold-turkey—immediately after. I haven’t played since.

Netflix even makes me nervous. The TV series that are available in today’s world, on-demand, are just too damn good. They’re literally designed to make you want to binge and they do a frighteningly good job at it. Each episode is exquisitely crafted to lead you right to the next and they only give you a few seconds to opt out of auto-play—RIGHT AFTER THEY LEAVE YOU AT A CLIFF. It’s preposterous. It’s brilliant. It’s why I keep my distance and only stream once (okay, sometimes twice) a week.

What scares me isn’t the act itself. It’s okay to TicTok, game out, and stream occasionally. What scares me is how easily time is lost to those outlets and how, if not careful, I could see myself losing a ton more time in a not-so-occasional way.

An hour in the blink of an eye? Is that really how I want to spend my hours? 16 hours straight without a break? I literally didn’t do anything else that day—not a single thing that contributed to myself or others. Binging an entire series? What about putting to words the series of my life?

My fear is that if I give these platforms an inch, they’ll take a mile—and it’s just not how I want to spend the miles of my life.

Routine Is Mesmerizing—Your Opportunity And Your Warning

“I keep to [my] routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind.”
Haruki Murakami, via MoveMe Quotes

Not all routines help you reach deeper states of mind. Some routines lead to mind-numbing, rut-inducing, counter-productive states of mind. The ones that you might find yourself in when you’re waking up late, to do work you don’t want to do, to pay for things you don’t really need, surrounded by people you don’t really like, only to go to bed late to do it all over again the next day. A person in a routine like this may actually be mesmerized to avoid deeper states of mind altogether.

Take heed; for all routines mesmerize.

And I think most of us are, in fact, mesmerized whether we realize it or not. Do you spend time every night plotting out exactly what you’re going to do each morning or do you automatically just do what you do? Do you consciously map out your route to work or does routine navigate the roads for you? When you get home at night do you arbitrarily pick out evening activities or do you subconsciously flow through them?

When you take a close enough look, you might be surprised at how much of your day is actually routinized versus how much you think is spontaneous.

The bottom line: routine can be your greatest enemy or your best friend. It can mesmerize you to reach deeper states of mind or it can do precisely the opposite. It can get you working out without so much as a single thought of resistance or it can fill your head with only thoughts of resistance. It can habitualize reading and writing or it can habitualize binging and gaming.

If your going to be mesmerized by a routine, make sure it’s with a routine that you’d be happy waking up from in 5, 10, 20 years. Because sometimes, that’s how long these states of hypnosis can last. And it goes without saying that not everybody who wakes up from prolonged hypnosis is happy with how all of their time was spent.

Don’t be that person. Wake up and rework your routine. Practice an upgraded routine daily and without variation. Hypnotize yourself deliberately; not accidentally. Take control of the subconscious actions of your life—and you’ll take control of your life.

Finish Before You’re Done

“I don’t believe in draining the reservoir, do you see? I believe in getting up from the typewriter, away from it, while I still have things to say.”
Henry Miller, via MoveMe Quotes

Finishing before you’re done is a hat-tip to the next session. It’s a gesture of goodwill passed on to your future self. It’s a recommitment to the process rather than an overcommitment to the moment. It comes from the understanding that burnout is real, overworking is counterproductive, replenishing the reservoir takes time, and overcoming the resistance to get back to work never gets easier. It’s a conscious decision to leave some fuel in the tank and to walk away before you’ve completely exhausted your resources so that the next time, you can arrive more ready.

And that’s exactly how it works for me. It happens often that I finish my daily writing and don’t feel done. I get urges to further proofread; to elaborate; to shorten; to rework analogies; to think of better opening and closing lines—and all, of course, right before I hit the publish button! But, rather than deplete all that I have, I save that excess energy for the next one. I recommit to my pace and set myself up for success the next day.

“Done,” for me, isn’t when I have nothing left to give—it’s when I have something good enough to share.

To which you might reply: the enemy of excellence is “good enough.” Be that as it may, what you also must consider is that the enemy of making progress is needing perfection. The need for a perfect writing entry; a perfect workout session; a perfect rehearsal; a perfect drawing; a perfect production—is precisely what’s going to make finishing and repeating the process impossible to do. Don’t confuse a desire for excellence with an unattainable aim at perfection.

This is why I usually stop my workouts once I’ve reached my 70% limit. It’s why I stopped trying to do too much with daily videos, pictures, and audio and decided to focus primarily on text. It’s why I’m able to walk away from my writing once I’ve crossed the threshold from crap to good enough and don’t bother trying for perfect. It’s also why I’m able to keep showing up day-in and day-out and why I usually don’t miss—because I don’t believe in draining the reservoir, do you see?

Understanding The “Compass” Of Your Life

“None of us can adequately control the meteorology of other people: they’re nice, they’re nasty, they come, they go. We have no choice but to address, alter and amend the inner coordinate if we want to have a different model of reality, if we want to have more choices.”
Russell Brand, via MoveMe Quotes

We all have an internal compass. A guiding needle that points each of us uniquely forward towards our “magnetic north”: our best self; our best life; our best path forward given our circumstances. A needle that’s made up of our values, morals, principles, character, and experiences.

But, like when a strong enough magnet comes near, our inner coordinate can mistakingly lock on to another person’s coordinate and can cause our needle to turn in the wrong direction—towards someone else’s magnetic north rather than our own.

Objectively speaking, when all emotions and attractions are taken out of the picture, I think we all are in tune with the direction of our inner compass. We know what we have to do to become our best selves, lead our best lives, and what next steps we need to take to keep moving forward. But, we’re not objective.

We’re deeply emotional, easily distracted, and weak against attraction. And when the magnetic pull of another person draws us in, we succumb to the model of reality as they see it and lose control over the direction of our own lives.

But, to be fair, this isn’t something that’s always immediately obvious to us. Like when you’re following your compass and something “kind of” doesn’t feel right, but you tell yourself you’re just being paranoid.

Until, eventually, you realize that the needle has, indeed, been off the whole time because of a magnetic disturbance. It’s a slow realization.

A realization that usually starts in your gut. And if you feel that something is (or might be) off in your gut, that instinct should be honored and investigated. Because what you might find is that what’s making you feel “off” isn’t something arbitrary or random, but rather an undetected attraction in a direction that’s actually just off from your magnetic north.

There Is A Lesson In Every Interaction

“Whenever anything negative happens to you, there is a deep lesson concealed within it, although you may not see it at the time. Even a brief illness or an accident can show you what is real and unreal in your life, what ultimately matters and what doesn’t.”
Eckhart Tolle, via MoveMe Quotes

Here’s the thing, there are lessons concealed within every interaction with life—not just the negative ones.

An interaction implies an exchange and with every exchange comes new information that can be processed and applied—or ignored.

It’s not a question of whether or not the lessons are there—it’s a question of whether or not you are aware.

Of course, not all lessons impact equally.

Negative interactions with life might beget more memorable lessons because they usually draw from deeper felt emotions. Pain, sadness, regret, remorse, guilt, etc. are all felt in the roots of our being.

Positive interactions may not evoke the same deep feelings simply because these emotions: content, happy, bubbly—are usually felt on the periphery—the branches—of our being.

This is why some of the most poignant lessons in a person’s life usually stem from some of their most painful experiences and are the hardest earned.

But, don’t let this scare you away.

This is not a process to be avoided. For, this is the very foundation from which wisdom grows. And the person who avoids these interactions, in any of their forms, avoids a chance at wisdom for themself.

This is the danger with sitting on the sideline; with choosing not to try because of fear; with avoiding opportunities in favor of comfort—you opt out of a chance for wisdom.

A chance for better judgement. A chance for deeper understanding. A chance for a better, future life.